11 July 2005 (RFE/RL) -- A Moscow court today sentenced two Russian men to 14 and 17 years in prison for the murder of two Uzbek citizens last summer.

However, the court did not recognize ethnic hatred as a motive of the crime.

Prosecutors had asked for Denis Yermoshin and Anton Kuznetsov to be convicted for hate crimes.

The two had pleaded innocent.

The investigation established that they broke into a house outside Moscow where a group of Uzbek citizens were staying and demanded $100. After being refused the money, they set the house on fire, killing two Uzbeks.